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RETURN TO S600 ACTION MAIN PAGE
S 600 IS
106th CONGRESS
1st Session
S. 600
To combat the crime of international trafficking and to protect the rights of victims.
IN THE SENATE OF THE UNITED STATES
March 11, 1999
Mr. WELLSTONE introduced the following bill; which was read twice and referred to the Committee on Foreign Relations
A BILL
To combat the crime of international trafficking and to protect the rights of victims.
Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States of America in Congress assembled,
SECTION 1. SHORT TITLE.
This Act may be cited as the `International Trafficking of Women and Children Victim Protection Act of 1999'.
SEC. 2. FINDINGS.
Congress makes the following findings:
(1) The worldwide trafficking of persons has a disproportionate impact on women and girls and has been and continues to be condemned by the international community as a violation of fundamental human rights.
(2) The fastest growing international trafficking business is the trade in women, whereby women and girls seeking a better life, a good marriage, or a lucrative job abroad, unexpectedly find themselves in situations of forced prostitution, sweatshop labor, exploitative domestic servitude, or battering and extreme cruelty.
(3) Trafficked women and children, girls and boys, are often subjected to rape and other forms of sexual abuse by their traffickers and often held as virtual prisoners by their exploiters, made to work in slavery-like conditions, in debt bondage without pay and against their will.
(4) The President, the First Lady, the Secretary of State, the President's Interagency Council on Women, and the Agency for International Development have all identified trafficking in women as a significant problem.
(5) The Fourth World Conference on Women (Beijing Conference) called on all governments to take measures, including legislative measures, to provide better protection of the rights of women and girls in trafficking, to address the root factors that put women and girls at risk to traffickers, and to take measures to dismantle the national, regional, and international networks on trafficking.
(6) The United Nations General Assembly, noting its concern about the increasing number of women and girls who are being victimized by traffickers, passed a resolution in 1998 calling upon all governments to criminalize trafficking in women and girls in all its forms and to penalize all those offenders involved, while ensuring that the victims of these practices are not penalized.
(7) Numerous treaties to which the United States is a party address government obligations to combat trafficking, including such treaties as the 1956 Supplementary Convention on the Abolition of Slavery, the Slave Trade and Institutions and Practices Similar to Slavery, which calls for the complete abolition of debt bondage and servile forms of marriage, and the 1957 Abolition of Forced Labor Convention, which undertakes to suppress and requires signatories not to make use of any forced or compulsory labor.
SEC. 3. PURPOSES.
The purposes of this Act are to condemn and combat the international crime of trafficking in women and children and to assist the victims of this crime by--
(1) setting a standard by which governments are evaluated for their response to trafficking and their treatment of victims;
(2) authorizing and funding an interagency task force to carry out such evaluations and to issue an annual report of its findings to include the identification of foreign governments that tolerate or participate in trafficking and fail to cooperate with international efforts to prosecute perpetrators;
(3) assisting trafficking victims in the United States by providing humanitarian assistance and by providing them temporary nonimmigrant status in the United States;
(4) assisting trafficking victims abroad by providing humanitarian assistance; and
(5) denying certain forms of United States foreign assistance to those governments which tolerate or participate in trafficking, abuse victims, and fail to cooperate with international efforts to prosecute perpetrators.
SEC. 4. DEFINITIONS.
(1) POLICE ASSISTANCE- The term `police assistance'--
(i) assistance of any kind, whether in the form of grant, loan, training, or otherwise, provided to or for foreign law enforcement officials, foreign customs officials, or foreign immigration officials;
(ii) government-to-government sales of any item to or for foreign law enforcement officials, foreign customs officials, or foreign immigration officials; and
(iii) any license for the export of an item sold under contract to or for the officials described in clause (i); and
(B) does not include assistance furnished under section 534 of the Foreign Assistance Act of 1961 (22 U.S.C. 2346c; relating to the administration of justice) or any other assistance under that Act to promote respect for internationally recognized human rights.
(2) TRAFFICKING- The term `trafficking' means the use of deception, coercion, debt bondage, the threat of force, or the abuse of authority to recruit, transport within or across borders, purchase, sell, transfer, receive, or harbor a person for the purpose of placing or holding such person, whether for pay or not, in involuntary servitude, or slavery or slavery-like conditions, or in forced, bonded, or coerced labor.
(3) VICTIM OF TRAFFICKING- The term `victim of trafficking' means any person subjected to the treatment described in paragraph (2).
SEC. 5. INTER-AGENCY TASK FORCE TO MONITOR AND COMBAT TRAFFICKING.
(1) IN GENERAL- There is established within the Department of State in the Office of the Secretary of State an Inter-Agency Task Force to Monitor and Combat Trafficking (in this section referred to as the `Task Force'). The Task Force shall be co-chaired by the Assistant Secretary of State for Democracy, Human Rights, and Labor Affairs and the Senior Coordinator on International Women's Issues, President's Interagency Council on Women.
(2) APPOINTMENT OF MEMBERS- The members of the Task Force shall be appointed by the Secretary of State. The Task Force shall consist of no more than twelve members.
(3) COMPOSITION- The Task Force shall include representatives from the--
(A) Violence Against Women Office, Office of Justice Programs, Department of Justice;
(B) Office of Women in Development, United States Agency for International Development; and
(C) Bureau of International Narcotics and Law Enforcement Affairs, Department of State.
(4) STAFF- The Task Force shall be authorized to retain up to five staff members within the Bureau of Democracy, Human Rights, and Labor Affairs, and the President's Interagency Council on Women to prepare the annual report described in subsection (b) and to carry out additional tasks which the Task Force may require. The Task Force shall regularly hold meetings on its activities with nongovernmental organizations.
(b) ANNUAL REPORT TO CONGRESS- Not later than March 1 of each year, the Secretary of State, with the assistance of the Task Force, shall submit a report to Congress describing the status of international trafficking, including--
(1) a list of foreign states where trafficking originates, passes through, or is a destination; and
(2) an assessment of the efforts by the governments described in paragraph (1) to combat trafficking. Such an assessment shall address--
(A) whether any governmental authorities tolerate or are involved in trafficking activities;
(B) which governmental authorities are involved in anti-trafficking activities;
(C) what steps the government has taken toward ending the participation of its officials in trafficking;
(D) what steps the government has taken to prosecute and investigate those officials found to be involved in trafficking;
(E) what steps the government has taken to prohibit other individuals from participating in trafficking, including the investigation, prosecution, and conviction of individuals involved in trafficking, the criminal and civil penalties for trafficking, and the efficacy of those penalties on reducing or ending trafficking;
(F) what steps the government has taken to assist trafficking victims, including efforts to prevent victims from being further victimized by police, traffickers, or others, grants of stays of deportation, and provision of humanitarian relief, including provision of mental and physical health care and shelter;
(G) whether the government is cooperating with governments of other countries to extradite traffickers when requested;
(H) whether the government is assisting in international investigations of transnational trafficking networks; and
(I) whether the government--
(i) refrains from prosecuting trafficking victims or refrains from other discriminatory treatment towards trafficking victims due to such victims having been trafficked, or the nature of their work, or their having left the country illegally; and
(ii) recognizes the rights of victims and ensures their access to justice.
(c) REPORTING STANDARDS AND INVESTIGATIONS-
(1) RESPONSIBILITY OF THE SECRETARY OF STATE- The Secretary of State shall ensure that United States missions abroad maintain a consistent reporting standard and thoroughly investigate reports of trafficking.
(2) CONTACTS WITH NONGOVERNMENTAL ORGANIZATIONS- In compiling data and assessing trafficking for the Human Rights Report and the Inter-Agency Task Force to Monitor and Combat Trafficking Annual Report, United States mission personnel shall seek out and maintain contacts with human rights and other nongovernmental organizations, including receiving reports and updates from such organizations, and, when appropriate, investigating such reports.
SEC. 6. INELIGIBILITY FOR POLICE ASSISTANCE.
(a) INELIGIBILITY- Except as provided in subsection (b), any foreign government country identified in the latest report submitted under section 5 as a government that--
(1) has failed to take effective action towards ending the participation of its officials in trafficking; and
(2) has failed to investigate and prosecute meaningfully those officials found to be involved in trafficking,
shall not be eligible for police assistance.
(b) WAIVER OF INELIGIBILITY- The President may waive the application of subsection (a) to a foreign country if the President determines and certifies to Congress that the provision of police assistance to the country is in the national interest of the United States.
SEC. 7. PROTECTION OF TRAFFICKING VICTIMS.
(a) NONIMMIGRANT CLASSIFICATION FOR TRAFFICKING VICTIMS- Section 101(a)(15) of the Immigration and Nationality Act (8 U.S.C. 1101(a)(15)) is amended--
(1) by striking `or' at the end of subparagraph (R);
(2) by striking the period at the end of subparagraph (S) and inserting `; or'; and
(3) by adding at the end the following new subparagraph:
`(T) an alien who the Attorney General determines--
`(i) is physically present in the United States, and
`(ii) is or has been a trafficking victim (as defined in section 4 of the International Trafficking of Women and Children Victim Protection Act of 1999),
for a stay of not to exceed 3 months in the United States, except that any such alien who has filed a petition seeking asylum or who is pursuing civil or criminal action against traffickers shall have the alien's status extended until the petition or litigation reaches its conclusion.'.
(b) WAIVER OF GROUNDS FOR INELIGIBILITY FOR ADMISSION- Section 212(d) of the Immigration and Nationality Act (8 U.S.C. 1182(d)) is amended--
(1) by inserting `(1)' after `(d)'; and
(2) by adding at the end the following:
`(2) The Attorney General shall, in the Attorney General's discretion, waive the application of subsection (a) (other than paragraph (3)(E)) in the case of a nonimmigrant described in section 101(a)(15)(T), if the Attorney General considers it to be in the national interest to do so.'.
(c) INVOLUNTARY SERVITUDE- Section 1584 of title 18, United States Code, is amended--
(1) inserting `(a)' before `Whoever';
(2) by striking `or' after `servitude';
(3) by inserting `transfers, receives or harbors any person into involuntary servitude, or' after `servitude,'; and
(4) by adding at the end the following:
`(b) In this section, the term `involuntary servitude' includes trafficking, slavery-like practices in which persons are forced into labor through non-physical means, such as debt bondage, blackmail, fraud, deceit, isolation, and psychological pressure.'.
(d) TRAFFICKING VICTIM REGULATIONS- Not later than 180 days after the date of enactment of this Act, the Attorney General and the Secretary of State shall jointly promulgate regulations for law enforcement personnel, immigration officials, and Foreign Service officers requiring that--
(1) Federal, State and local law enforcement, immigration officials, and Foreign Service officers shall be trained in identifying and responding to trafficking victims;
(2) trafficking victims shall not be jailed, fined, or otherwise penalized due to having been trafficked, or nature of work;
(3) trafficking victims shall have access to legal assistance, information about their rights, and translation services;
(4) trafficking victims shall be provided protection if, after an assessment of security risk, it is determined the trafficking victim is susceptible to further victimization; and
(5) prosecutors shall take into consideration the safety and integrity of trafficked persons in investigating and prosecuting traffickers.
SEC. 8. ASSISTANCE TO TRAFFICKING VICTIMS.
(a) IN THE UNITED STATES- The Secretary of Health and Human Services is authorized to provide, through the Office of Refugee Resettlement, assistance to trafficking victims and their children in the United States, including mental and physical health services, and shelter.
(b) IN OTHER COUNTRIES- The President, acting through the Administrator of the United States Agency for International Development, is authorized to provide programs and activities to assist trafficking victims and their children abroad, including provision of mental and physical health services, and shelter. Such assistance should give special priority to programs by nongovernmental organizations which provide direct services and resources for trafficking victims.
SEC. 9. AUTHORIZATION OF APPROPRIATIONS.
(a) AUTHORIZATION OF APPROPRIATIONS FOR THE INTER-AGENCY TASK FORCE- To carry out the purposes of section 5, there are authorized to be appropriated to the Secretary of State $2,000,000 for fiscal year 2000 and $2,000,000 for fiscal year 2001.
(b) AUTHORIZATION OF APPROPRIATIONS TO THE SECRETARY OF HHS- To carry out the purposes of section 8(a), there are authorized to be appropriated to the Secretary of Health and Human Services $20,000,000 for fiscal year 2000 and $20,000,000 for fiscal year 2001.
(c) AUTHORIZATION OF APPROPRIATIONS TO THE PRESIDENT- To carry out the purposes of section 8(b), there are authorized to be appropriated to the President $20,000,000 for fiscal year 2000 and $20,000,000 for fiscal year 2001.
(d) PROHIBITION- Funds made available to carry out this Act shall not be available for the procurement of weapons or ammunition.
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