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'Throw human smugglers into the slammer'
American anti-trafficking czar says it is not enough to have laws and set up task forces to combat the crime, if all the effort does not lead to putting the offenders behind bars.
IF A drug trafficker is able to smuggle marijuana into a country unnoticed, he will be able to sell it just once. The process is fraught with danger - if police discover the loot, he could be sent to jail - or if he is in Singapore, he could even lose his life.
But if the same trafficker were to lure a young girl into a country with the promise of giving her a job, then hold her captive in a brothel and charge men for having sex with her - he could reap gains over and over again.
Unlike the marijuana, which would need to be hidden while being smuggled into any country, the girl, with legal entry papers, could cross immigration without a hitch. 'It's safer to trick and exploit a vulnerable girl and make money from her over and over again, than sell that single packet of marijuana,' says American anti-trafficking czar Luis CdeBaca.
This makes human trafficking - where vulnerable people are tricked or forced into sex or servitude - even more dangerous and difficult to catch than drug trafficking.
'And this is why governments need to care,' says the man tasked by United States President Barack Obama to monitor human trafficking activities worldwide.
Mr CdeBaca, 44, directs an office within the US State Department that produces an annual report card of how countries around the world are combating human trafficking. The latest Trafficking in Persons (TIP) Report was released in late June.
Last week, while acknowledging that human trafficking was a serious issue, the Singapore Government pointed out some factual inaccuracies in the report.
Among other things, Singapore denied that it did not do enough to reduce the demand for commercial sex. It also disputed the report's claim that there were no labour trafficking convictions here last year. There had, in fact, been eight, and the data was made available to the US State Department before the report was made public.
But Mr CdeBaca maintains he stands by the report. 'We have a number of sources and we are confident of them.'
Although Singapore has disputed some facts in the TIP report, Mr CdeBaca says its recent assertions that it is getting tough on human trafficking and will sign an international treaty against the crime are a 'big and welcome change from its past stance'.
Singapore has long maintained that trafficking is rare here. However, in June, the Government said it was working towards signing the UN treaty, known as the Palermo Protocol, and had even set up an inter-agency task force to combat the crime. Since then, it has reiterated its stance publicly four times, including at a United Nations meeting in New York last month.
While welcoming this, Mr CdeBaca says Singapore's real test will come in showing whether this policy change can yield concrete results by freeing victims and jailing offenders.
'If a country puts in place wonderful legal structures to combat human trafficking, yet it is unable to convict even a single trafficker, those structures and policies would have been futile,' says the Michigan-trained lawyer who was in Singapore recently to speak at an international conference on human trafficking. 'Jailing traffickers must be the ultimate goal.'
For starters, he says the Republic could consider improving its record of prosecuting and putting traffickers behind bars.
Singapore prosecuted five sex trafficking cases and secured convictions in eight labour trafficking cases last year. In another 36 alleged cases, there were not enough leads for prosecution.
To be fair, prosecution and conviction rates for human trafficking continue to be abysmally low, not just in Singapore, but worldwide. According to the TIP report, more than 33,100 human trafficking victims were identified globally last year. Yet, there were only 6,000 prosecutions - and only about 60 per cent of those prosecuted eventually went to jail.
He acknowledges that after stressing the need for tough new laws to convict traffickers over the past decade, his department's focus has finally shifted to results. 'We hope this will be the decade of delivery,' he says. 'We're looking for systems that lead inexorably towards results.'
So now, it is no longer good enough to simply have an inter-agency task force to combat the crime. Instead, the task force should be able to show how many victims it helped and how many traffickers it was able to jail.
'Show us the numbers and we'll say 'wow'. It's no point having a nice car if it's never going to be driven anywhere.'
His conviction that the only way to combat the crime is by jailing offenders comes from experience prosecuting criminals who enslaved vulnerable people. As a whip-sharp prosecutor in the US Department of Justice, he personally helped convict about 100 traffickers and helped rescue more than 600 men, women and children sold into slavery in the US.
But how can you jail perpetrators, if the crime is genuinely very rare, as the Singapore Government has maintained is the case here for many years?
His response is that there simply is not enough data for Singapore to conclude that trafficking is rare - or not. 'If you're not looking, then of course you're not finding.'
In the US, although anti-slavery laws have existed since the 1860s, he notes the federal authorities were prosecuting only two or three cases a year till the late 1990s.
Then, in 1998, then President Bill Clinton issued an executive order to say that human trafficking was to form a special focus of prosecuting authorities. The order led to an inter-ministerial task force and special prosecution teams being set up to combat trafficking.
'Suddenly instead of putting three or four traffickers in prison each year, we were putting 30 or 40 traffickers away. The numbers have gone up even more dramatically in recent years after we put in place a dedicated human trafficking prosecutors unit.'
In the last financial year, federal officials obtained 141 convictions in 103 human trafficking prosecutions in the US. This represents the largest number of human trafficking prosecutions initiated in a single year. These numbers do not reflect cases undertaken by various states and those that involved the commercial sexual exploitation of children that were brought under laws other than the US' anti-trafficking law.
Countries like the US, Sweden and most recently the Philippines which have special prosecution units dedicated to combating trafficking tend to be better at achieving convictions, Mr CdeBaca says.
'They are better able to recognise a trafficking case when they see it, because that's their job. Rather than come up with legal reasons why a case is not trafficking, they are incentivised to seek out innovative legal strategies to ensure that the victims get justice.'
The incentives are not material, but stem more from the pride officials take in combating not a nuisance crime, but a 'big crime' that goes against the universal declaration of human rights.
'Like firefighters, they have an esprit de corps. They don't see themselves as some minor bureaucrat processing a wage claim, but as members of elite squads that help free a maid or a factory worker who were forced to work without pay or were denied freedom and abused by having scalding water poured on them.'
Building a successful prosecution against a trafficker typically requires some level of assistance and cooperation from the victim.
By employing 'careful and compassionate' interviewing strategies, specially trained law enforcement officials are more likely to gain victims' trust and allay their fears, thereby increasing the odds of their participation in the criminal justice process.
In the US, prosecutors are not only netting more convictions, but jail terms too are on the rise. Last year, the average prison sentence imposed for federal trafficking crimes was 11.8 years. Notable federal prosecutions included the longest sentence returned in a forced labour case, where an offender was given a 20-year sentence for holding a woman in 'domestic servitude' for eight years.
Countries around the world have raised penalties as they 'reconceived' trafficking from a migration problem to one that infringed on human rights.
'In Europe, we're seeing many more offenders receiving sentences of between 14 years - which you could typically get for brutal rape - and 21 years, which you get for murder, which shows that European countries are now viewing this as the most serious of crimes.'
Singapore too could consider increasing penalties, he says. Under the Women's Charter, the maximum prison term for trafficking a woman or a girl is five years, though in two recent convictions in 2009, offenders received sentences of under 20 months. Under the Penal Code, the maximum jail sentence is 10 years for selling a minor for prostitution.
In the US, comparatively, penalties for the same offence range from a minimum of 10 years' jail to life imprisonment. Mr CdeBaca maintains that trafficking is a crime akin to kidnapping and extortion, so penalties should be commensurate with that.
'If you are talking about someone living off the proceeds of prostitution, that's pimping and could be worth a year or two in jail,' he says. 'But with human trafficking, you're talking about the denial of freedom - and that's worth a lot of time in prison.'
[email protected]
American anti-trafficking czar says it is not enough to have laws and set up task forces to combat the crime, if all the effort does not lead to putting the offenders behind bars.
IF A drug trafficker is able to smuggle marijuana into a country unnoticed, he will be able to sell it just once. The process is fraught with danger - if police discover the loot, he could be sent to jail - or if he is in Singapore, he could even lose his life.
But if the same trafficker were to lure a young girl into a country with the promise of giving her a job, then hold her captive in a brothel and charge men for having sex with her - he could reap gains over and over again.
Unlike the marijuana, which would need to be hidden while being smuggled into any country, the girl, with legal entry papers, could cross immigration without a hitch. 'It's safer to trick and exploit a vulnerable girl and make money from her over and over again, than sell that single packet of marijuana,' says American anti-trafficking czar Luis CdeBaca.
This makes human trafficking - where vulnerable people are tricked or forced into sex or servitude - even more dangerous and difficult to catch than drug trafficking.
'And this is why governments need to care,' says the man tasked by United States President Barack Obama to monitor human trafficking activities worldwide.
Mr CdeBaca, 44, directs an office within the US State Department that produces an annual report card of how countries around the world are combating human trafficking. The latest Trafficking in Persons (TIP) Report was released in late June.
Last week, while acknowledging that human trafficking was a serious issue, the Singapore Government pointed out some factual inaccuracies in the report.
Among other things, Singapore denied that it did not do enough to reduce the demand for commercial sex. It also disputed the report's claim that there were no labour trafficking convictions here last year. There had, in fact, been eight, and the data was made available to the US State Department before the report was made public.
But Mr CdeBaca maintains he stands by the report. 'We have a number of sources and we are confident of them.'
Although Singapore has disputed some facts in the TIP report, Mr CdeBaca says its recent assertions that it is getting tough on human trafficking and will sign an international treaty against the crime are a 'big and welcome change from its past stance'.
Singapore has long maintained that trafficking is rare here. However, in June, the Government said it was working towards signing the UN treaty, known as the Palermo Protocol, and had even set up an inter-agency task force to combat the crime. Since then, it has reiterated its stance publicly four times, including at a United Nations meeting in New York last month.
While welcoming this, Mr CdeBaca says Singapore's real test will come in showing whether this policy change can yield concrete results by freeing victims and jailing offenders.
'If a country puts in place wonderful legal structures to combat human trafficking, yet it is unable to convict even a single trafficker, those structures and policies would have been futile,' says the Michigan-trained lawyer who was in Singapore recently to speak at an international conference on human trafficking. 'Jailing traffickers must be the ultimate goal.'
For starters, he says the Republic could consider improving its record of prosecuting and putting traffickers behind bars.
Singapore prosecuted five sex trafficking cases and secured convictions in eight labour trafficking cases last year. In another 36 alleged cases, there were not enough leads for prosecution.
To be fair, prosecution and conviction rates for human trafficking continue to be abysmally low, not just in Singapore, but worldwide. According to the TIP report, more than 33,100 human trafficking victims were identified globally last year. Yet, there were only 6,000 prosecutions - and only about 60 per cent of those prosecuted eventually went to jail.
He acknowledges that after stressing the need for tough new laws to convict traffickers over the past decade, his department's focus has finally shifted to results. 'We hope this will be the decade of delivery,' he says. 'We're looking for systems that lead inexorably towards results.'
So now, it is no longer good enough to simply have an inter-agency task force to combat the crime. Instead, the task force should be able to show how many victims it helped and how many traffickers it was able to jail.
'Show us the numbers and we'll say 'wow'. It's no point having a nice car if it's never going to be driven anywhere.'
His conviction that the only way to combat the crime is by jailing offenders comes from experience prosecuting criminals who enslaved vulnerable people. As a whip-sharp prosecutor in the US Department of Justice, he personally helped convict about 100 traffickers and helped rescue more than 600 men, women and children sold into slavery in the US.
But how can you jail perpetrators, if the crime is genuinely very rare, as the Singapore Government has maintained is the case here for many years?
His response is that there simply is not enough data for Singapore to conclude that trafficking is rare - or not. 'If you're not looking, then of course you're not finding.'
In the US, although anti-slavery laws have existed since the 1860s, he notes the federal authorities were prosecuting only two or three cases a year till the late 1990s.
Then, in 1998, then President Bill Clinton issued an executive order to say that human trafficking was to form a special focus of prosecuting authorities. The order led to an inter-ministerial task force and special prosecution teams being set up to combat trafficking.
'Suddenly instead of putting three or four traffickers in prison each year, we were putting 30 or 40 traffickers away. The numbers have gone up even more dramatically in recent years after we put in place a dedicated human trafficking prosecutors unit.'
In the last financial year, federal officials obtained 141 convictions in 103 human trafficking prosecutions in the US. This represents the largest number of human trafficking prosecutions initiated in a single year. These numbers do not reflect cases undertaken by various states and those that involved the commercial sexual exploitation of children that were brought under laws other than the US' anti-trafficking law.
Countries like the US, Sweden and most recently the Philippines which have special prosecution units dedicated to combating trafficking tend to be better at achieving convictions, Mr CdeBaca says.
'They are better able to recognise a trafficking case when they see it, because that's their job. Rather than come up with legal reasons why a case is not trafficking, they are incentivised to seek out innovative legal strategies to ensure that the victims get justice.'
The incentives are not material, but stem more from the pride officials take in combating not a nuisance crime, but a 'big crime' that goes against the universal declaration of human rights.
'Like firefighters, they have an esprit de corps. They don't see themselves as some minor bureaucrat processing a wage claim, but as members of elite squads that help free a maid or a factory worker who were forced to work without pay or were denied freedom and abused by having scalding water poured on them.'
Building a successful prosecution against a trafficker typically requires some level of assistance and cooperation from the victim.
By employing 'careful and compassionate' interviewing strategies, specially trained law enforcement officials are more likely to gain victims' trust and allay their fears, thereby increasing the odds of their participation in the criminal justice process.
In the US, prosecutors are not only netting more convictions, but jail terms too are on the rise. Last year, the average prison sentence imposed for federal trafficking crimes was 11.8 years. Notable federal prosecutions included the longest sentence returned in a forced labour case, where an offender was given a 20-year sentence for holding a woman in 'domestic servitude' for eight years.
Countries around the world have raised penalties as they 'reconceived' trafficking from a migration problem to one that infringed on human rights.
'In Europe, we're seeing many more offenders receiving sentences of between 14 years - which you could typically get for brutal rape - and 21 years, which you get for murder, which shows that European countries are now viewing this as the most serious of crimes.'
Singapore too could consider increasing penalties, he says. Under the Women's Charter, the maximum prison term for trafficking a woman or a girl is five years, though in two recent convictions in 2009, offenders received sentences of under 20 months. Under the Penal Code, the maximum jail sentence is 10 years for selling a minor for prostitution.
In the US, comparatively, penalties for the same offence range from a minimum of 10 years' jail to life imprisonment. Mr CdeBaca maintains that trafficking is a crime akin to kidnapping and extortion, so penalties should be commensurate with that.
'If you are talking about someone living off the proceeds of prostitution, that's pimping and could be worth a year or two in jail,' he says. 'But with human trafficking, you're talking about the denial of freedom - and that's worth a lot of time in prison.'
[email protected]
