The US House of Representatives has passed Rep. Chris Smith’s (R-NJ)
Trafficking Victims Protection Reauthorization Act. This ensures that
the existing act does not lapse and will also secure more funding for
the global fight against human trafficking if the senate now passes
the act and President Bush signs it into law. It is hoped that the bill
will provide $361 million to help in the global fight against human
trafficking. Chris Smith said
“The 2005 Trafficking Victims Protection Reauthorization Act provides
law enforcement with the tools necessary to continue liberate the
unfortunate women and children who are forced into this horror.”
With an estimated 600,000 to 800,000 people being trafficked across
borders into forced labour, forced prostitution and begging every
year, it is vital that this funding is available to combat trafficking
in a global manner.
Chris Smith said;
“With a crime as abhorrent as human trafficking, it is essential that
the United States takes the lead and that includes within our own
borders,”

Chinese national has been convicted of sex trafficking in the pacific
island state of Palau. “Defendant Song Jie voluntarily, intelligently
and knowingly entered a guilty plea to two counts of exploiting a
trafficked person,” the court said. She recruited two Chinese women to
work as waitresses in a bar, offering them 300 dollars per month. When
they arrived in the pacific state; they were forced into prostitution.
Song Jie will now face a six month sentence which could be reduced to
three months if she pays restitution. The case shows the global reachj
of sex trafficking. It is good that the state of Palau is applying its
law against human trafficking, but a possible three month sentence
will be no deterant to traffickers who can earn thousands of dollars
from a trafficked woman.

The United Nations Children’s fund UNICEF has warned that millions of children are at increased risk of human trafficking because the governments of their countries are not even aware that they exist. In its annual report on the State of the World’s Children “Excluded and Invisible”, UNICEF estimates that around 150 million children are not registered at birth, and so it is impossible to know how many are being abused or trafficked. If there is no registration, governments can ignore them and traffickers can sell them, without fear of legal reprisals. “These numbers are huge, and we do have to push several buttons in every case,” said UNICEF child protection chief Karin Landgren. “So we have to start by shining that light on the plight of these children.” The report showed that child trafficking is a growing phenomenon. Ann Veneman of UNICEF said, “Trafficking needs to be looked at as a global problem that is not just a developing world problem … because the demand often comes from the developed world,”

The Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) has adopted a decision “Ensuring the Highest Standards of Conduct and Accountability of Persons Serving on International Missions and Forces.” The decision was made at the OSCE’s ministerial council on the 5th and 6th of December in Ljubljana. The decision calls on the 55 OSCE member states to take action to prevent peace keeping forces or people on other missions for the organisation from engaging in human trafficking, from employing those who have been trafficked into forced labour and to stop sexual abuse by people representing the OSCE. The decision follows a similar resolution by NATO in 2004. The Co-Chairman of the U.S. Helsinki Commission, Rep. Chris Smith, applauded the decision;
“The OSCE has taken an important step in establishing an internationally recognized standard for the behavior of military and civilian personnel serving in peacekeeping and related roles around the world,”
“It is helping to insure that those entrusted to keep the peace and protect vulnerable populations do not, instead, add to human suffering.”
“While the overwhelming majority of persons serving on peacekeeping missions adhere to the highest standards of conduct, there have been cases of human trafficking, sexual exploitation and abuse of local populations. With this, and NATO’s ‘zero-tolerance’ policy against human trafficking, the international community has made clear that those entrusted with protecting the innocent will not become their exploiters,” said Smith.
The problem the OSCE now faces is getting the full co-operation of all its member states. This is the challenge faced by NATO as well, as the power for enforcing prosecutions against those involved in human trafficking while on missions abroad rests with their national governments. It is now up to these governments to make the OSCE decision a reality.

A Russian woman has pleaded guilty to trafficking her niece into forced prostitution in the United States. The woman, Alena Okhotina, 35, invited her niece to come to the Los Angeles and paid for her travel, but on arrival she took her passport from her and forced her to work as a prostitute, threatening that if the 18 year old went to the police she would be arrested as an illegal immigrant. She also told her that if she left her aunt’s apartment she would be alone on the streets.
“Sex trafficking is one of the vilest forms of exploitation and the fact that someone would inflict this kind of suffering on their own flesh and blood is unconscionable,” said Los Angeles ICE special agent-in-charge Loraine Brown. “ICE is working closely with the other members of the Los Angeles Metropolitan Area Task Force on Human Trafficking to ensure that those who engage in this reprehensible practice are brought to justice and pay the price.”