Renewal Forum

Comment on Robert George Joining Renewal Forum Board

We offer today urgent commentary by Renewal Forum Senior Fellow Margaret MacDonnell on the proposed re-authorization of the Trafficking Victims Protection Act (TVPA) of 2000 (HR 3887).   In the attached report, we have identified  a number of reasons why we as a Nation are finding so few victims of human trafficking in the Nation.  These reasons are mostly due to the law’s implementation by federal authorities. HR 3387 makes no effort to correct these failings.There is one exception.  HR 3887 does alter how juvenile victims are treated by federal authorities.  Current practice, as explained by Margaret MacDonnell in her report, has a chilling effect on the detention of juvenile victims.  Even here, however, this one step forward is rendered moot by conflicting provisions in the Bill which render it ineffective and undesirable as a successor to the original TVPA. We urge all interested in this issue to share this important analysis.  Please don’t hesitate to contact the Renewal Forum for more information.

TVPA Re-Authorization Analysis - Why It Fails Children 

Below is the text of the Forum’s formal response to the Washington Post A-1 story, “Human Trafficking Evokes Outrage, Little Evidence.”

Renewal Forum President Steven Wagner, responding to the September 23, 2007 A-1 Washington Post story on human trafficking, “Human Trafficking Evokes Outrage, Little Evidence,” said today “Unfortunately, instead of holding the federal government accountable for results, the Post inappropriately gives it a pass by suggesting the phenomenon is overstated.”The Post article focuses on the disparity between the number of federally certified victims of human trafficking (1,362) and estimates of the annual number of new foreign victims (14,500 – 17,500).

The Post article goes on to suggest the estimates are overblown. At no time does the Post explore why efforts to identify and rescue victims have been ineffective.”This story’s conclusion might be justified if we could say that the federal government has made every effort to find victims of trafficking,” Wagner said, “but this is not the case.”According to Renewal Forum analyses, several factors ignored by the Post explain the lagging pace of victim identification and rescue:The paucity of federal law enforcement resources devoted to enforcement;The routine deportation of victims, contrary to their status as victims of crime under the Trafficking Victims Protection Act (TVPA);The lack of systematic intelligence-gathering, targeting foreign criminal trafficking syndicates;A de facto cooperation standard for minor victims, insisted upon by the U.S. Department of Justice in defiance of the TVPA; andVictims not being made known to federal authorities by NGO service organizations, out of concern for their clients’ potential deportation, among other factors.  

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