Saying as many as two million women around the world are forced into sexual slavery, White House officials told a Senate committee hearing Feb. 22 that sex may be replacing narcotics as the top illegal trade action. Both the Senate and the House of Representatives have introduced bills to stop such trafficking.
Assistant Secretary of State for Democracy, Human Rights, and Labor Harold Koh told the Senate Foreign Relations Subcommittee on Near Eastern and Southern Asian Affairs thatr international criminals are shifting from guns and drugs to marketing women. ``There are weaker restraints and growing demand,'' he testified.
Kansas Republican Sen. Sam Brownback talked about meeting women victims during recent travels to Asia, calling the sex trade ``the greatest manifestation of slavery in the world today,'' according to the Associated Press. ``They are told they will be taking a job as a nanny and are given money of their family," he said. "Then they are taken across a border and held against their will. We are only beginning to learn the methods of this industry. Two-thirds come back with AIDS or tuberculosis. They basically come back to die.''
One such victim, identifying herself only as Inez to protect her identity, told the subcommittee she was forced into sexual slavery in the U.S. by traffickers in her native Mexico, the AP says, who would dupe her by promising restaurant work but then claim she owed them smuggling fees to pay off by selling herself to men.
``We worked six days a week and 12-hour days,'' she testified. "We mostly had to serve 32 to 35 clients a day." She added that law enforcement raided the brothel but some traffickers escaped back to Mexico, the AP says.
Getting firm numbers on the range of sexual slavery is difficult, the AP continues, but best numbers show at least fifty thousand women a year are brought to the U.S. for forced labor. The factors, according to Teresa Loar, who directs the President's Interagency Council on Women, include breakdowns of international borders and expansion of trade.
Other officials say "feeder countries" for sexual slavery include Ukraine, Albania, Mexico, Nigeria, the Philippines, and Thailand, the AP says.
The Clinton Administration has focused on stopping the trade from getting established, protecting the victims, and prosecuting traffickers, according to Undersecretary of State for Global Affairs Frank E. Loy. He told the Senate subcommittee the administration isn't ready to push for economic sanctions against offending countries because that would hinder efforts to build an international fight against sexual slavery.
