Institute for the Study of International Migration,

Walsh School of Foreign Service, Georgetown University

Transatlantic Perspectives on Migration
Policy Brief #3 August 2007
The publication of Transatlantic Perspectives on Migration is made possible
by a grant from the German Marshall Fund of the United States
PREVENTING HUMAN TRAFFICKING:
AN EVALUATION OF CURRENT
EFFORTS
Whitney Shinkle
*
* Whitney Shinkle is a Research Associate at the Institute for the
Study of International Migration at the Walsh School of Foreign
Service at Georgetown University.
Preventing Human Traffcking
1
INTRODUCTION
Tracking entails the recruiting, transporting, or harboring of a person, by means of force,
fraud, coercion, or other threats, for the purposes of exploiting that person in subsequent forced
labor. Unlike traditional cases of human smuggling, in tracking the relationship between the
victim and the tracker may or may not cease after the victim has been transported; in many
cases the victim may be passed from one tracker to another.
Tracking is fed by two reciprocal forces: the demand for cheap labor and the supply of people
willing to leave home in search of better economic opportunities. It is further fueled by the
nancial gains that accrue to the trackers. Governments have begun confronting the problem
through a combination of policies and programs designed to prevent the phenomena, protect
victims and vulnerable populations, and prosecute smugglers and trackers. Tis brief evaluates
the methods of prevention employed by governments in North America and Europe, including
both demand-based and supply-based techniques, as well as preventative instruments targeted
at reducing the nancial gains accrued by trackers and smugglers.
Despite the growing attention to human tracking and the increasing number of policies directed
at its elimination, knowledge about the phenomenon is very limited. Credible qualitative and
quantitative data are in short supply. Due to the clandestine nature of the practice, information
on the characteristics of victims and their experiences, as well as the characteristics and networks
of trackers is mostly anecdotal and often hard to generalize. Te data that do exist come from a
variety of governmental, nongovernmental, and limited academic sources. Perhaps most striking
about the developing picture of tracking is its complexity. Experiences are diverse and vary by
region. Dominant cultural practices, family structures, community support systems, and the
closed or openness of the society, among other factors, all may impact the shape and prevalence
of tracking and eorts to prevent its occurrence.
Further complicating the picture, evidence has emerged indicating that the ows of human
smuggling and human tracking are overlapping. What have, to date, been conceptualized as
two distinct and separate activities tracking and smuggling may in actuality interact. Several
cases have been diagnosed as having started o as cases of human smuggling and winding up
as cases of human tracking when the migrant arrived in the destination country. Te recent
tightening of border areas and immigration policies in the United States and many Western
European countries, has caused speculation that the greater diculty in migrating may increase
the desperation of individuals looking abroad for economic opportunities and consequently
enhance the power and position of human smugglers to take advantage of and exploit these
individuals.
2
Whitney Shinkle
What has become clear is that in general the movement of tracked people shifts from
less developed to more developed countries as individuals seek to improve their economic
opportunities. Estimates set the number of tracked people annually at approximately 800,000
a year (US Department of State, 2007) and calculate that 2.5 million people are in situations of
forced labor due to tracking at any given time (Belser, 2005). A study from the International
Labor Organization has calculated that the potential annual prots from human tracking
could top $31 billion placing it among the top three sources of illegal income worldwide (Belser,
2005).
LEGISLATIVE FRAMEWORKS FOR COMBATING TRAFFICKING
At the international level, the legal framework for addressing human tracking (and the related
issue of human smuggling) is primarily constructed by the United Nations Convention Against
Transnational Organized Crime and its protocols: the Protocol to Prevent, Suppress, and
Punish Tracking in Persons, Especially Women and Children; and the Protocol Against the
Smuggling of Migrants by Land, Air, and Sea. Individual national legislation takes its cues from
this document though every country makes its own specic provisions.
US Legislation
In the United States, the Tracking Victims Protection Act (TVPA) of 2000, and its
reauthorizations of 2003 and 2005, provide comprehensive anti-tracking laws. Te TVPA
departed from the prior patchwork legislative approach, which attempted to address tracking
using a variety of other related laws. Te most elemental change wrought by the passage of
the TVPA was to acknowledge that those caught up in human tracking, although often
illegally present in the country of destination, are victims to be protected, not criminals to be
punished and deported. In brief, the multi-faceted TVPA and its reauthorizations create policy
and mechanisms for preventative measures to forestall tracking across US borders; increase
protection and services to tracking victims already in the United States, including access to the
T-Visa allowing victims to stay in the United States in exchange for assisting with investigation
or prosecution of their tracker; enhance prosecution of trackers and their accomplices;
and monitor other nations anti-tracking activities. Te TVPA also established the Oce to
Monitor and Combat Tracking in Persons (TIP Oce) and instituted provisions to monitor
and eliminate tracking in countries outside the United States.
Of note, the TVPA distinguishes between smuggling which it depicts as a victimless crime in
which migrants cross borders without authorization and tracking, which violates the rights
of the victim.
Preventing Human Traffcking
3
European Legislation
Te guiding documentation for European human-tracking legislation comes from the
European Union. Te critical EU legislation against tracking is embodied in the European
Council Framework Decision of 19 July 2002 on Combating Tracking in Human Beings. Tis
decision criminalizes tracking, outlines penalties for punishing a tracking oense, mandates
protective measures (including a provision that investigations into tracking oenses not be
dependent on the victim), invokes preventive action, and establishes reporting requirements for
Member States. Tis decision is binding on all EU members as of August 2004, although individual
Member States demonstrate a range of approaches to countering human tracking within these
parameters. Some countries have passed legislation explicitly criminalizing tracking while
others continue to address it through a patchwork of other related instruments.
Te Council of Europe Convention on Action against Tracking in Human Beings establishes
the minimum standards of protection for victims, but as of June 2007 this Convention had only
been ratied by 7 states (36 have signed) and has not yet entered into force. Nonetheless, over
the past several years a number of countries have passed more comprehensive national anti-
tracking legislation or adopted national action plans to be implemented in the coming year,
including Bulgaria, Cyprus, Estonia, Greece, Hungary, and Kazakhstan. Tese improvements
consist of regulations pertaining to governmental responsibilities on preventing and combating
human tracking, assisting and protecting victims of tracking, increasing investigation and
prosecution capabilities, enhancing cooperation between governmental and non-governmental
authorities, and international cooperation with other states as well as international and regional
organizations. While these laws provide a credible framework, they and other, more limited,
reforms are still relatively new and their implementation remains in question.
PREVENTION POLICIES AND PROGRAMS
Although prevention is the most long-term avenue for reducing or eliminating human tracking,
it has been governments least employed tactic. Part of this inattention results from the lack of
mechanisms by which to measure the impacts and success of prevention programs in achieving
their intended results. Nonetheless, partly due to the urging of anti-tracking advocates and
service providers, both governments and NGOs are developing stronger policies and practices
for prevention activities. Tese policies fall into three categories: supply-based, demand-based,
and reducing nancial gains.
4
Whitney Shinkle
Supply-based Policies
Supply-based prevention policies attempt to stem the supply of individuals falling victim to
human tracking. Tese programs target vulnerable populations and avenues of recruitment
and transport. Te programs fall into four principal areas: 1) raising popular awareness of human
tracking; 2) building the political will and capacity of national governments and civil society
to combat tracking in their countries; 3) providing legal alternatives for migration; and 4)
reducing the conditions of poverty and gender inequality thought to constitute primary push
factors making people vulnerable to trackers.
Awareness-Raising
Awareness-raising constitutes one of the most prevalent activities in the prevention arsenal. It
takes many forms, targeting not only key policymakers and the public at-large, but also potential
future victims. Within the United States, the Department of Health and Human Services Oce
of Refugee Resettlement has awarded grants to numerous nongovernmental organizations to
conduct awareness-raising eorts among homeless and other groups considered vulnerable to
tracking, including youth, migrant farm workers, and prostitutes, in order to familiarize them
with possible scams and techniques that have been used by trackers.
However, US policymakers have determined that stemming the supply of victims also requires
building up awareness in the countries of origin. Consequently, it has supported awareness-
raising and/or child education and training programs in Albania, Bangladesh, Belarus, Benin,
Brazil, Cambodia, Croatia, Democratic Republic of Congo, Georgia, Kazakhstan, Liberia,
Madagascar, Mali, Moldova, Mongolia, Mozambique, Russia, Serbia and Montenegro, Sierra
Leone, Sri Lanka, Tajikistan, and Ukraine among others (USAID, 2006). Tese programs have
included the establishment and promotion of national tracking information hotlines; local
and national television, radio, and poster campaigns; inclusion of education materials on
exploitation and tracking in school curricula; workshops for key service personnel who might
come into contact with victims; and introduction of local and cross-border theater and folk song
productions, featuring popular TV and cinema artists.
Europe, incorporating countries of origin, transit, and destination, has been both the sponsor
and the recipient of awareness-raising campaigns. Past activities have included broad, public
media campaigns (sometimes government sponsored), intensive training programs for key
audiences (reporters, teachers, health professionals, etc.), and school-based education programs.
Awareness-raising programs have become more targeted to those at risk, often tailoring and
distributing the messages for the most at-risk populations or for those individuals best-positioned
to assist them (teachers, doctors, police, border guards, etc.) (Rosenberg, 2004: 4). One training
Preventing Human Traffcking
5
program for local government ocials not only resulted in increased interest in tracking but
also in continued collaborative eorts between local government and the community to ght
tracking.
Recently, however, evidence that awareness-raising campaigns have been eective at educating
populations about tracking, has been tempered by evidence that such campaigns simultaneously
resulted in some unexpected and unintended consequences. Awareness-raising programs are
based on the assumption that high risk populations would avoid the dangerous behaviors leading
to tracking if they understood the threat. One unexpected consequence of awareness-raising
has been to increase interest in working abroad among some of the populations receiving the
anti-tracking training. Having been educated about tracking, some individuals feel better
equipped to avoid its perils and therefore are less fearful about traveling abroad for work. A
second unintended consequence was increased restrictions on women and girls whose families
fear their abduction, deception, and exploitation (Rosenberg, 2004: 14).
Building Political Will and Capacity
Te use of carrots and sticks to encourage countries of origin and transit to take measures to
prevent tracking is another technique. One prevention instrument employed by the TIP Oce
in the United States is the annual Tracking in Persons Report, which is deployed as a means
to name and shame countries that are not adequately addressing tracking. Te Report details
the eorts of countries to prevent tracking, protect victims, and prosecute trackers. Te
Report ranks countries into three tiers (and a watch list category) according to the strength of
their initiatives in relation to the standards set out by the TVPA and TVRPA. Tose countries
which meet US standards, or are making signicant eorts towards them, are grouped within
the rst two tiers, while those taking insucient steps are ranked in Tier Tree. Countries from
the third tier who are judged to be initiating programs but whose implementation or credibility
have yet to be proven may be moved up to the Tier Two Watch List. Similarly, countries from
the second tier who fail to improve upon previous years eorts, or who relax their eorts, may
be downgraded to the Watch List.
Te Report utilizes two tactics to encourage compliance with anti-tracking standards: shame
and sanctions. Tis public revelation of countries commitments has shamed several countries
into improving their counter-tracking record. Since 2001 when the Report was instituted, the
total number of countries evaluated and ranked has risen yet the number of countries in Tier Tree
has dropped. As a nal incentive, the TVPA empowers the US president to impose sanctions on
countries that so badly fail in these eorts that they fall into the Tier Tree category.
Te TIP Report has been a critical lever to gain the attention of high level policymakers and
ensure that human tracking made the international agenda. It also provides a single framework
6
Whitney Shinkle
based on the tenets of prevention, protection, and prosecution within which to measure the
anti-tracking eorts of the worlds countries on an ongoing basis. On the other hand, the TIP
Report has been criticized as unilateral, non-transparent, and inconsistent. Other governments
have complained particularly loudly that the criteria for determining the rankings are not well
explained and that the United States does not apply its ranking system to judging how well its
own eorts meet the designated standards.
One disadvantage of the focus on the TIP Report has been the heavy emphasis on prosecution.
Although a vital and necessary part of a comprehensive anti-tracking program, eective
prosecution requires a well-developed legal system, free from rampant corruption, and
possessing the components necessary to ensuring a safe and credible trial, including witness
protection capabilities, adequate detention facilities, and access to fair and timely processes.
Many of the developing countries from which tracking victims originate simply do not have
these capacities as yet. However, since prosecutions remain one of the more measurable elements
of anti-tracking eorts, and given US threats to sanction countries that fail to improve their
eorts, the legal approach has been prioritized over protection and prevention in various national
eorts.

Capacity building is seen as an important component of prevention. Both US and European
agencies have undertaken their own education and outreach eorts, as well as similar eorts
with their international counterparts in law enforcement, justice, and tourism ministries. Within
the U.S., ocials in the Departments of Justice (including the FBI, and Civil Rights Division),
Homeland Security (particularly Immigration and Customs Enforcement, Customs and Border
Protection, and Citizenship and Immigration Services), and state and local law enforcement
ocers have been targeted for additional training intended to assist them in identifying and
rescuing victims of human tracking and to provide the appropriate referrals for victims.
Abroad, US experts have provided training to local judges, public prosecutors, lawyers, and
Bar Council members, organized and trained community watch groups of local ocials and
law enforcements agencies, consulted on ways to improve witness protection programs, and
provided and trained ocials to use equipment for video testimony (Rosenberg, 2004; USAID,
2006).
Similarly, many European countries are undertaking the same initiatives with regard to
improving their own capacity to detect and prevent tracking, and a select few are also assisting
countries of origin to combat tracking as well. Te UK, for example, has taken eorts to train
ocials in victim identication in Turkey, enhance operational investigation capacity on the
Serbia-Croatia border, support increased law enforcement agency cooperation and coordination
eorts in Bulgaria and Romania, and to both demonstrate and enforce zero-tolerance policies
for the exploitation of women and children in conict zones where UK troops are deployed
Preventing Human Traffcking
7
(Home Oce, 2007: 25-6). Te French government created new positions in six French overseas
embassies, in countries viewed as most susceptible to child sex tourism, to educate country
ocials in combating child sex tourism, and assist with prosecuting French nationals involved
in such crimes (US Department of State, 2006). Given that many European countries serve as a
combination of source, transit, and destination countries, some even playing all three roles, it is
unsurprising that much of their energy may be directed inwards, or to coordinating with their
neighbors.
Legal Alternatives
Migrant advocates have called for providing legal means of migration as a way of preventing many
forms of exploitation aecting transnational migration. According to this argument, the number
of individuals who feel it necessary to work abroad remains stable, regardless of whether or not
their migration will be legal or illegal. Making it dicult for people to migrate legally, therefore,
forces would-be migrants to take greater risks in order to seek work abroad, potentially pushing
them into the hands of smugglers or trackers. By eliminating the need for migrants to take
such risks to sneak across borders, providing legal alternative routes for migration or temporary
work abroad is viewed as one way to diminish the role of, and opportunities for, tracking.
In the meantime, safe migration programs constitute one method of providing at-risk groups
with the information necessary to make informed decisions about the jobs they accept, and of
empowering individuals to migrate safely and to seek assistance in case of diculties. However, a
large assumption behind these programs is that there is sucient information available to judge
the safety of job oers.
Taking the opposing side, critics argue that providing further means for migrants to enter the
country only provides more options of which trackers can take advantage, particularly if
there are little or no investigations of labor abuses in countries of destination. A service that
trackers can oer prospective migrants is help in gaining legitimate work visas. Appearing to
be legitimate labor recruiters, the trackers oer this service at high fees. Upon arrival in the
destination country, the migrants then nd themselves in debt bondage, unable to leave the
arranged employment even if the wages and working conditions are far below what had been
promised.
Reducing Push Factor Conditions
Long-term eorts are directed at reducing the push factor conditions such as poverty, gender
inequality, and lack of education or economic opportunity estimated to motivate people to
undertake the risks that result in their bring tracked. In a variety of source countries, the United
States, through USAID, has sponsored poverty reduction programs, domestic violence victim
assistance programs and shelters, HIV/AIDS prevention initiatives for prostitutes, job training
8
Whitney Shinkle
and entrepreneurship development, and reintegration programs for demobilized ex-soldiers.
USAID has also sponsored programs to ght corruption in government on the assumption that
reduced corruption might improve the distribution of state resources and increase the available
opportunities for a broader group of people (Rosenberg, 2004; USAID, 2006).
In Europe, prevention is explicitly understood as both awareness-raising and active prevention
activities that primarily address the root causes of tracking. Te partners of the Stability Pact
(which includes the United States) agreed to address the demand for sex services and cheap,
unprotected labor; promote safe means of migration; and address the involvement of authorities
in human tracking. Te UK, for example, pledged in its 2007 Action Plan on Addressing
Human Tracking, to continue to increase [its] development program budget to reach the UN
target of 0.7% of national income by 2013 which supports country-led approaches to improve
governance and security, health and education, and decent work opportunities for poor people
(Home Oce, 2007: 23).
In practice, however, most countries continue to address prevention by clamping down on
migration, prostitution, and organized crime. Additionally, in Europe, a great proportion of
this work is carried out by NGOs whose restricted budgets and geographic coverage limit their
ability to reach a signicant portion of vulnerable populations.
Despite rhetoric about the need for comprehensive approaches to prevention, awareness- raising
is by far the most common instrument of prevention in both the United States and Europe.
Anecdotal evidence indicates that awareness-raising campaigns in Albania, Bulgaria, Moldovia,
and Romania may be responsible for reducing levels of tracking though the inability to
accurately measure the eectiveness of awareness-raising activities makes this dicult to prove
(Rosenberg, 2004: 13). A signicant weakness in supply-based anti-tracking eorts is the lack
of direct research on human tracking underpinning policy decisions. As a result, the linkages
between the awareness-raising campaigns and reductions in numbers of persons tracked are
indirect and assumed. Te content and targeting of awareness-raising eorts, whether focused
on potential victims or key governmental and NGO ocials, depends on a reasonable assessment
of who is at risk and why. However, the scarcity of victims combined with legitimate concerns
about victim protection has resulted in a dearth of robust research and policies based on the
experiences of the victims themselves. A dedicated eort must be made to ensure that the voices
of victims contribute to the formulation of preventative programming.
Demand-based Prevention Policies
Despite continuing debate over the causal and enabling factors of human tracking, a study for
the International Organization of Migration concluded that there is a clear demand for exploitable
workers in many countries in various industries which is often satised through tracking
Preventing Human Traffcking
9
(Anderson and Davidson, 2003). Demand-based programs are based on the assumption that
informing consumers about tracking and its victims, imposing criminal sanctions against
consumers, making the use of these services socially unacceptable, or educating potential
trackers or beneciaries about prostitution, gender violence, human rights, and other issues,
will reduce demand.
Te Tracking Victims Protection Act of 2000 (TVPA) clearly criminalized any attempts to
engage in forced labor. It also ratcheted up the existing penalties for those crimes and provided
for mandatory restitution and forfeiture in proven tracking oenses. Te United States
Department of Justice also increased the number of successful prosecutions from 5 in 2001 to
79 in 2006, an increase of more than 1,400 percent (US Department of Justice, 2007: 17). Tese
measures are designed to puncture trackers sense of impunity and deter future tracking by
demonstrating the increased risk associated with tracking to or within the United States.
Te US government has also implemented measures designed to increase the cost and/
or consequences imposed on purchasers or employers of tracked labor, with the intent of
decreasing the demand for such persons, particularly for sex tracking. Te United States
has also expanded its area of jurisdiction over crimes of sex tourism through the Prosecutorial
Remedies and Other Tools to End the Exploitation of Children Today Act of 2003 (PROTECT
Act). Te PROTECT Act improves on the Child Sexual Abuse Prevention Act of 1994 by:
Broadening the list of activities considered criminal;
Eliminating the requirement that the defendant have had intent to commit such an act
before or upon leaving the United States;
Including operators of sex tours as viable targets of criminal prosecution;
Increasing the maximum sentence upon conviction to 30 years per sexual act.
Further, the Tracking Victims Protection Reauthorization Act of 2005 (TVPRA 2005) mandated
research on the connection between tracking and conict, requiring greater investigation
into the connection between deployments of peacekeepers and humanitarian workers and the
increase in the number of women and girls tracked. It further required that USAID and the
Departments of State and Defense incorporate anti tracking and protection measures into all
post-conict and humanitarian assistance activities.
European regional organizations have taken similar measures to address expatriate demand.
In 2005, the OSCE Ministerial Council Decision No. 16/05 called on member states to ensure
that their national laws and regulations could be enforced with respect to their nationals
on peacekeeping forces or other international missions, provide training on policies and
10
Whitney Shinkle
consequences regarding human tracking when instructing military and civilian personnel
abroad, and to prevent, enforce, and punish cases of tracking among such personnel (OSCE,
2005).
One of the more experimental demand-reduction eorts in the EU has been undertaken by
Sweden. Te 1999 Act Prohibiting the Purchase of Sexual Services shifts the burden of criminality
to the people who buy sex, and o of the prostitutes. Buyers of sex can receive a six months
prison sentence. During the laws rst ve years, charges were brought against some 750 men
and approximately two-thirds of those charged are expected to be sentenced.
Supporters attest that street prostitution has decreased dramatically, foreign women
have mostly disappeared from the streets and men have become scared and more
cautious. However, critics posit that more than two-thirds of prostitutes have simply
begun working indoors: at home, in a brothel, in a club, or as escorts. Some attest that
exposing, investigating, and prosecuting sex purchases that occur indoors is more dicult,
proponents maintain that the numbers of casual oenders have been signicantly reduced
(Rosenberg, 2004: 27). Other countries are reportedly considering similar laws to criminalize
the buyers of sex, rather than legalizing prostitution, and Finland passed legislation in 2006
prohibiting the purchase of sexual services in situations linked to human tracking (Legislation
Online, 2006).
Countries including Ukraine, Russia, Moldova, and Belarus have also taken steps to license
companies that provide services to facilitate employment, travel, or marriage overseas. In theory,
such licensing agreements allow governments to regulate company activities and prevent them
from engaging, knowingly or otherwise, in tracking in persons by investigating companies
and sanctioning violators (Rosenberg, 2004: 24). Citizens now also should be able to verify the
legitimacy of companies and their oers. Te credibility of these eorts remains to be seen.
Policymakers on both sides of the Atlantic recognize the need for stronger instruments available
to investigators and prosecutors addressing the demand for exploitable labor. However, legal
systems continue to disproportionately favor trackers over victims and laborers. In the U.S.,
labor laws do not dene household or agricultural workers as employees under the National
Labor Relations Act (NRLA). Not only does this deny them certain protections, it provides
refuge for employers who are free from troublesome inspections. In addition, domestic workers
who are brought to the United States on visas are generally required to remain with their original
employer or risk deportation. Employers can easily manipulate such threats against tracked
or smuggled persons who fear the ramications of discovery and deportation. Employers of
agricultural workers benet from the additional fact that labor contractors, not growers, are
responsible for the legal rights of workers, eectively providing them with a deniability clause.
Preventing Human Traffcking
11
Furthermore, in general, the implementation of the law has been inconsistent. For example,
the TVPA allows the United States to sanction governments that are not making recognizable
progress towards combating tracking. However, to date, the United States has chosen only
to sanction those few countries against which it had already instituted a sanctions regime,
undermining the TVPAs deterrent or preventative function.
Most importantly, many countries have not explicitly or openly acknowledged the fact that
some industries, particularly labor-intensive ones, might not survive in the absence of cheap,
unprotected labor. Tis connection needs to be publicly recognized and the necessary resources
allocated to agencies which are responsible for ensuring that illicit and criminal labor practices
are prevented, investigated, and prosecuted.
Reducing the Financial-Gains from Tracking
Some advocates have begun designing policies to undercut the nancial gains enjoyed by
trackers, smugglers, and corrupt ocials which sustain criminal operations, although few
credible eorts have applied this approach.
To date, US eorts have focused on imposing costs at both the national and individual level. As
mentioned above, the TVPA contains international monitoring and sanctions provisions enabling
the US government to impose sanctions on those countries which are ranked in Tier Tree by
the annual Tracking in Persons Report. Tough rare, such sanctions have been applied in a
few cases. Such sanctions can withhold non-humanitarian, non-trade-related assistance or, if
a country does not receive such assistance, withhold funding for participation in educational
and cultural exchange programs. Te United States might also choose to oppose a countrys
application for assistance from international nancial institutions (excepting applications for
humanitarian, trade-related, or some development-related assistance).
At the individual level, the TVPA established mandatory restitution from convicted trackers.
Te TVPRA of 2003 also allows survivors to sue their former trackers for damages in civil court.
Tese initiatives are intended to discourage would-be trackers by raising the cost of human
tracking relative to its potential gains. It is hoped that in light of the heightened numbers of
arrests and prosecutions, trackers will be forced to re-evaluate their cost/benet analysis.
Few European counterparts have taken steps to impose greater deterrent costs on the
trackers themselves. Te UK, however, has implemented a similar series of nancial deterrent
mechanisms to those of the United States, seeking to conscate any proceeds of crime under the
Proceeds of Crime Act or 2002. Te Home Oce is also evaluating recommendations to try and
12
Whitney Shinkle
prevent re-tracking by giving victims the option to claim compensation from their trackers
by requesting a compensation order upon conviction, suing the oender in civil courts, or, in
certain circumstances, through the UK Criminal Injuries Compensation Scheme.
CONCLUSION
Anti-tracking campaigns have gained much needed momentum over the past several years,
nonetheless, the global progress against tracking has been uneven and inconsistent and
generally dicult to measure. To date, much work reects the emphasis on prosecution that is
so dominant in the United States. In the long-term, however, prevention is likely to be a much
more eective way to avert the exploitation of vulnerable women, men, boys, and girls than
seeking to identify and extract victims from their clandestine circumstances once their tracking
experience is underway. ISIM commends the past reforms and encourages governments to
devote more of their energies to prevention eorts in seeking more eective ways to combat
human tracking.
RECOMMENDATIONS
Despite recent increases in the attention to and prevalence of prevention activities in human
tracking campaigns, prevention-based eorts remain the least utilized of the anti-tracking
techniques, in large part because credible means of measuring their eectiveness are still under-
developed. Until the links are better proven between awareness-raising, or other prevention
activities, and a reduction in tracking, prevention will be poorly explored. Nevertheless, given
the diculty in identifying and extracting tracking victims once they are immersed in this
clandestine practice, eective prevention could be the most eective way to protect vulnerable
populations.
Te following recommendations are suggested means of improving prevention eorts:
Overall Recommendations
Governments should apportion resources for dedicated research and consultation with
survivors to solicit their opinions and experiences for eective means of prevention.
Governments must dedicate resources to developing evaluation metrics to measure
the eectiveness of prevention techniques, particularly the popular awareness-raising
campaigns. For whatever programs governments choose to rely on to deter tracking,
Preventing Human Traffcking
13
they need improved measures to monitor the eectiveness of these programs so that
successful campaigns can be tailored to be relevant in local communities and best
practices can be replicated. Western governments should also seek to assist developing
source countries in designing measuring instruments to track the progress of their own
prevention programs.
Recommendations for Supply-based Eorts
Awareness-Raising
Awareness-raising initiatives should target consular and immigration ocials abroad
in addition to law enforcement and immigration ocials at home. It is important that
government ocials in overseas visa-issuing posts and ports of exit be able to identify
potential tracking victims before they leave their own countries and enter new transit
or destination countries. Ocials also need to be made aware of available service and
assistance programs for victims, and referral mechanisms, as well as safe ways to question
and inform potential victims of these options outside the presence of their tracker.
Public awareness campaigns must do a better job of identifying high risk target
communities, including recent immigrant populations. Trackers appear to target their
own ethnic groups for both victims and associates, suggesting that these groups are in
positions of both particular vulnerability and opportunity. Past examples suggest that
broad public awareness campaigns might increase the number of victims identied
and the pressure on employers not to use tracked labor, but these campaigns need to
be more comprehensive in accessing and educating vulnerable communities, not only
beneciary communities.
Governments should further encourage the development of early warning systems
wherein NGOs and labor organizations monitor high risk and vulnerable populations,
the families of witnesses, or repatriated victims for threats, risks, and possible tracking
activity.
Building Political Will and Capacity
National and international monitoring bodies should look for ways to emphasize
prevention in annual evaluations of tracking eorts, including recognition of best
practices and identication of measurement instruments and indicators.
Training and education for agency ocials must be provided to local and district level
law enforcement ocials. To date, most anti-tracking eorts have been limited to the
national level, although much of the work in identifying and investigating tracking cases
could be best conducted at the local level. Without basic training to identify tracking or
14
Whitney Shinkle
smuggling, protect victims, and prosecute the criminals, local law enforcement ocers
may in fact harm their eorts to identify and prosecute trackers, sometimes deporting
or criminalizing the victims they need as eyewitnesses to successfully try their targets.
Legal Alternatives
Countries need to engage in a sincere dialogue about labor migration and the demand/
supply needs of the country. Signicant work is needed to promote legal immigration
avenues and regulations based on a credible assessment of the labor requirements and
migration policies of each country.
Reducing Push Factors
Perhaps most importantly, governments must address deep-seated inequalities within
their own countries. Deep and intractable social issues appear to underlay many victims
decisions to undertake or accept risky or unspecied oers of work that end up in
tracking. Common sense would imply that if individuals are moving from impoverished
to wealthier countries, they would be less likely to seek, participate, or tolerate many
of the underground, unregulated, or irregular employment which leaves them open to
exploitation if they had other means of providing for themselves and their families in
their home countries.
Governments must devote more resources to researching the linkages between inequalities
and tracking in order to implement more eective prevention policies. UNIFEM and
other researchers have suggested that women or certain minority populations (ethnic,
religious, etc.) are more vulnerable to tracking as a result of discriminatory policies
(see UNIEFEM, womenwarpeace.org). Te consequences of these conditions must be
more thoroughly understood in order to ecaciously address deep-seated inequalities
underlying human tracking.
Recommendations for Demand-based Eorts
Governments need to strengthen the framework of labor laws regarding the employment
of illegal workers and impose greater costs on those employers who choose to employ
and/or exploit illegal laborers.
Governments need to strengthen the capacity and ability of investigative forces, like
those among the Department/Ministry of Labor, to legitimize the threat of discovery for
employers hiring or exploiting illegal workers and enhance the deterrent factor of labor
laws.
Existing legal codes and procedures need to be better promoted and enforced to increase
Preventing Human Traffcking
15
their deterrent factor. Department/Ministries of Justice need to eliminate loop holes
which favor trackers over their victims and seek more humane and creative court
practices to ensure that victims, who may be abroad, facing legitimate security threats,
or physically or mentally unable to appear at trial, have safe and legitimate means of
testifying or participating in investigations and prosecutions. Such alternatives might
make use of video-conferencing capabilities, closed circuit TV, or other technological
advances.
Recommendations for Financial Gains-Reduction Eorts
Institute and streamline the process by which victims can demand restitution or sue for
damages in civil court.
16
Whitney Shinkle
REFERENCES
Anderson, B., and J.O. Davidson
2003 Is Tracking in Human Beings Demand Driven? A Multi-Country Pilot Study, IOM Migration
Research Series, No. 15, Geneva: IOM.
Belser, P.
2005 Forced Labour and Human Trafficking: Estimating the Profits, Working Paper, Geneva:
International Labour Organization Oce.
Home Oce and Scottish Executive
2007 Action Plan on Tackling Human Tracking, Internet, http://www.homeoce.gov.uk/documents/
human-track-action-plan?view=Binary.
Legislation Online
2006 Finland Passes Law on Criminalisation on the Purchase of Sexual Services of Victims of Tracking,
Legislation Online, 21 June 2006, http://www.legislationline.org/news.php?tid=1&jid=17.
Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE)
2005 Decision No. 16/05 Ensuring the Highest Standards of Conduct and Accountability of Persons
Serving on International Forces and Missions, OSCE Ministerial Council (13) Journal No. 2, 6
December, http://194.8.63.155/documents/mcs/2005/12/17372_en.pdf.
Rosenberg, R.
2004 Best Practices for Programming to Prevent Tracking in Human Beings in Europe and Eurasia,
Maryland: Development Alternatives, Inc.
UNIFEM
2007 Women, War, Peace and Tracking, online fact sheet, Womenwarpeace.org, http://www.
womenwarpeace.org/issues/tracking/tracking.htm, (accessed: August 2007).
US Agency for International Development (USAID)
2006 Tracking in Persons: USAIDs Response, Washington, DC: USAID.
US Department of Justice
2007 Attorney Generals Annual Report to Congress on U.S. Government Activities to Combat
Tracking in Persons Fiscal Year 2006, Washington, DC: Department of Justice.
US Department of State
2007 Introduction, Tracking in Persons Report 2007, Internet, http://www.state.gov/g/tip/rls/
tiprpt/2007/82799.htm.
2006 Tracking in Persons Report 2006, Internet, http://www.state.gov/g/tip/rls/tiprpt/2006/65988.
htm.
Policy Brief #1:
Women, Migration and Development
By Susan F. Martin
Policy Brief #2:
Transatlantic Perspectives on Migration: Protecting Tracking
Victims: Inadequate Measures?
By Whitney Shinkle
Policy Brief #3:
Preventing Human Tracking: An Evaluation of Current Eorts
By Whitney Shinkle
Policy Brief #4:
International Migration and Anti-Terrorism Laws and Policies:
Balancing Security and Refugee Protection
By Andrew I. Schoenholtz and Jennifer Hojaiban
For more information on the Transatlantic Perspectives on
Migration Policy Brief Series and other ISIM initiatives, please
visit:
h t t p : / i s i m . g e o r g e t o w n . e d u
Transatlantic Perspectives on Migration Policy Brief Series
Te Institute for the Study of International Migration (ISIM)
is part of the Edmund A. Walsh School of Foreign Service and
aliated with the Law Center at Georgetown University. ISIM
brings the best social science, legal and policy expertise to the
complex and controversial issues raised by international migration.
Staed by leading experts on immigration and refugee policy,
the Institute draws upon the resources of Georgetown University
faculty working on international migration and related issues on
the main campus and in the law center. http://isim.georgetown.edu
Te German Marshall Fund of the United States (GMF) is a
nonpartisan American public policy and grantmaking institution
dedicated to promoting greater cooperation and understanding
between the United States and Europe. GMF does this by supporting
individuals and institutions working on transatlantic issues, by
convening leaders to discuss the most pressing transatlantic
themes, and by examining ways in which transatlantic cooperation
can address a variety of global policy challenges. Founded in 1972
through a gift from Germany as a permanent memorial to Marshall
Plan assistance, GMFs headquarters is in Washington, DC. GMF
has seven oces in Europe: Berlin, Bratislava, Paris, Brussels,
Belgrade, Ankara, and Bucharest. http://www.gmfus.org
N o n - P r o t O r g a n i z a t i o n
U S P o s t a g e P A I D
P e r m i t N o . 3 9 0 1
W a s h i n g t o n , D C
3 3 0 0 W h i t e h a v e n S t N W
S u i t e 3 1 0 0
W a s h i n g t o n , D C 2 0 0 0 7
2 0 2 - 6 8 7 - 2 2 5 8
2 0 2 - 6 8 7 - 2 5 4 1 ( f a x )
h t t p : / i s i m . g e o r g e t o w n . e d u