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HUMAN TRAFFICKING SEMINAR REPORT

Gloria Scoggin Chair of Founder Region Legislative Advocacy Committee and Dion Weaver, District II committee representative attended a Western Regional Task Force Training Seminar on Human Trafficking held in San Diego, California on September 29-30, 2005.

Human trafficking is the recruitment, smuggling, abducting, transporting, harboring, buying or selling of a person by means of force, fraud, threats, or coercion for the purpose of labor or sexual exploitation. Prostitution is not the oldest profession, it is the oldest form of OPPRESSION in the world.

The seminar, sponsored by BSCC (Bilateral Safety Corridor Coalition) and the City of San Diego focused on bridging the gap between law enforcement and NGO’s (non-governmental organizations).

The approximate 200 attendees represented law enforcement including police, sheriffs, F.B.I., U. S. Dept. of Health and Human Services, U. S. Department of Justice, U. S. Department of State, Immigration, SAGE, and many NGO’s such as Soroptimists, Faith Based Organizations, The Salvation Army etc.

BSCC’s mission is to preserve the dignity and well being of commercially and sexually exploited women and children through prevention, intervention, and education and to allow living in a world where women and children’s lives are protected and held in high esteem and where there is zero tolerance for exploitation

This one-of-a-kind training seminar included a way to develop a more effective and collective team action plan that can have immediate implementation including educating your community to conduct more effective searches for, and be able to better identify, victims of human trafficking. Also provided were investigative techniques to assist in the prosecution of those persons responsible for abductions.

Breakout sessions were split into law enforcement and NGO groups.

Law Enforcement Track topics were: Teen Prostitution, Law Enforcement Response to Human Trafficking, preliminary Findings, Legal Advocacy Program at the Coalition to Abolish Slavery & Trafficking and Prosecution & Legal Statutes. The Non-Profit Track included topics of Interagency Referrals for Trafficking in Persons, SAGE (Standing Against Global Exploitation), NGO Responsibilities as Liaison for the Abolition of Sexual Trafficking, Teen Prostitution, Sexually Transmitted Diseases –STD’s and HIV in the context of Human Trafficking: A Public Health Crisis, and Intimate Connection between Prostitution and Trafficking.

Following a Human Trafficking Overview, attendees separated into joint sharing sessions and a facilitated working session in geographical groups to develop action plans.

Within the past year approximately seven of the major cities in the United States including San Francisco have received federal grants to form a Task Force to identify the influx of illegal human trafficking into the country and get them off our streets. The persons responsible for these abductions must be identified, arrested, and prosecuted.

A speaker from the F.B.I. reported on an arrest in the Ft. Worth , Texas area within the past year where a trafficking ring was broken up after months of observation and led to the arrest of six abductors involved. The girls had been brought into the country from Honduras . The maximum sentence given to these abductors was six years.

State of California AB3042 signed into law in January 2005 is a systemic shift in how we approach the sexual exploitation of children providing vital tools for the prosecuting attorney to insure that the perpetuator of child sexual exploitation is held accountable.

California AB22 signed by the Governor is a comprehensive anti-trafficking bill designed to protect victims, prosecute traffickers, and prevent human trafficking in California and also includes criminal provisions and prosecution as a priority and restitution for the victim with Social Service Provisions which are many and varied.

California ’s Anti-Trafficking Task Force studies the various issues in connection with human trafficking and advises the Legislature. San Francisco has a safe house for commercially exploited girls and is in collaboration between the Department of Public Health, Community Behavioral Health Services, the Mayor’s Office, the District Attorney, and the SAGE Project.

There is so much going on within our country and state so this is merely an overview. For further information please contact Gloria or Dion. More information can also be obtained at the BSCC web site: http://bsccoalition.org/ keeping in mind that points of view at the web site are those of the author and do not necessarily represent the official position of policies of the U.S. Department of Justice.