*EPF210 12/09/2003
Trafficking Emerging as Human Rights Issue of 21st Century
(John Miller's December 9 remarks at Foreign Press Center) (650)

By Jane Morse
Washington File Staff Writer

Washington -- Human trafficking is "the emerging human rights issue of the 21st century," according to John Miller, the director of the State Department's Office to Monitor and Combat Trafficking in Persons.

Speaking December 9 to reporters at the Foreign Press Center in Washington, Miller noted that some 800,000 to 900,000 people are trafficked across international borders each year.

Most of those trafficked are women and children who are sold into sexual slavery, Miller said, but many trafficked people end up in forced slavery on factories and farms. Early in 2004, he said, the State Department hopes to have more statistics on the gender, race, and age of those trafficked.

"Our own estimates are that 18,000 to 20,000 men, women and children are trafficked across the United States borders as slaves or into slavery," Miller noted. "I mentioned that because this problem, this challenge, afflicts almost every nation in the world."

Sex tourism, according to Miller, is the major driving force behind trafficking. He acknowledged that trafficking continues to flourish because the leadership in many countries tolerates it.

"If you look around the world," Miller said, "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 ... you often find countries where the officials are either tolerating it or they are on the take," Miller said. "This is why in our report [the annual Trafficking in Persons Report] we're supposed to particularly focus on looking at how governments are doing, to look at the area of government complicity."

The State Department estimates that trafficking in persons generates $7 to $10 billion annually for the people perpetrating this crime. In turn, organized criminal groups, gangs, brothel owners, and corrupt law enforcement personnel funnel trafficking profits into more criminal activities. While the link between trafficking in persons and organized crime is clear, Miller said, so far there is no first-hand evidence that human trafficking is linked with terrorism networks.

The victims, according to State Department investigations, are generally poor, vulnerable and desperate to improve their lives and the lives of their families.

Miller told reporters that the United States is especially sensitive to the slavery issue. "We have the stain of slavery in our history," he said, noting that a bloody American Civil War (1861-1865) was waged over the institution of slavery.

President Bush became the first world leader to speak on human trafficking before the United Nations General Assembly, in September 2003. A full 20 percent of his speech was devoted to the issue, noted Miller.

The United States, Miller said, is committed to developing a multi-pronged approach fighting human trafficking, using the joint efforts of the Department of Justice, the Department of Health and Human Services, and the Department of Homeland Security.

"Abroad, we are engaged with foreign governments," Miller said. "Our diplomats are engaged in trying to enhance, persuade, 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 Department of Justice recently evaluated the United States in a report."

Miller thanked the press for their interest in human trafficking, saying: "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."

(The Washington File is a product of the Bureau of International Information Programs, U.S. Department of State. Web site: http://usinfo.state.gov)

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