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Assessment of U.S. Government Activities to Combat Trafficking in Persons in Fiscal Year 2004

NCJ Number
215474
Date Published
September 2005
Length
28 pages
Annotation
This report presents a review of the U.S. Government's activities to combat human trafficking and offers recommendations for future action.
Abstract
The United States is often a destination country for human trafficking and, as such, has taken a lead in the fight against it. The centerpiece of the U.S. Government's fight against human trafficking is the Trafficking Victims Protection Act (TVPA) of 2000, which enhanced the protection, prosecution, and prevention of human trafficking. The Trafficking Victims Protection Reauthorization Act (TVPRA) of 2003 reauthorized the TVPA, mandated information campaigns to combat sex tourism, and created a new civil action to allow trafficking victims to sue their traffickers. The benefits and services provided to trafficking victims by the U.S. Government are reviewed and include services from the Department of Health and Human Services, the Department of Justice, the Department of Labor, Legal Services Corporation, and the Department of Agriculture. The two main immigration benefits available to trafficking victims are described, the "continued presence" benefit and the T visa, followed by an assessment of how investigations and prosecutions of trafficking offenses are handled. Investigations are typically undertaken by the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), while prosecutions of human trafficking cases are handled by the Criminal Section of the Department of Justice's (DOJ) Civil Rights Division, with collaborative assistance from U.S. Attorneys' Offices nationwide. DOJ filed 29 human trafficking cases in Fiscal Year 2004. In addition to homeland efforts, the U.S. Government supports a number of international anti-trafficking programs, which in 2004 totaled to $82 million in 86 countries. Various training efforts to combat human trafficking are reviewed and the establishment of the Senior Police Operating Group is described. Several recommendations are offered for future U.S. Government efforts toward eradicating human trafficking, including the recommendations to improve current abilities to find and rescue victims and to conduct more research on the trafficking problem in the United States.