S. 600 (Senate - March 11, 1999)
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.
In this Act:
(1) Police assistance: The term `police assistance'--
(A) means--
(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;
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.